“He didn’t mean literal bodies,” Oxford said quickly. “But the Lost Media Archives are here. All the footage of old missions, that you asked about. The classified stuff.”
Ruthven let out a strangled noise, muffled only because his lips were welded shut. Violence was very much not his thing, but he did rather want to brain Oxford with a poker. Or, at least, a very heavy book.
“Not to mention us,” said Banksia, rolling on to his back. “We’re also classified.”
“Everyone thinks you’re dead,” Ruthven blurted. “Well. Not everyone, I suppose.” Lost Media Archives. All the answers he had been wanting. This meant more to him than getting back his actual memories. This was something solid.
Oxford had figured out that he needed this.
Professor Burbage pushed a cup of tea into Ruthven’s hands, which helped a lot with the overwhelm coursing through his brain. “Sit down, young man. I expect you have questions.”
“I don’t know where to start!” Ruthven settled with his large cup and saucer on one end of a Chesterfield sofa. It was brightly floral, looking like it had been in this room since the twentieth century. “Oxford said your name is Hepple-Burbage. Are you a descendant of the Hepple family who have owned Fenthorp Manor for so many centuries?”
“That’s right,” Burbage said easily, settling into a chair that was clearly fitted to his own body after decades. “The last Hepple. I inherited the old pile from a great-uncle I’d never met, and planned to turn it into a research centre. Then one day, twenty years ago, a golden circle appeared on the chamomile lawn and three large purple cat-shaped creatures from the future fell through. My life plans shifted after that.”
Ruthven looked at Banksia.
Banksia, scrappy little grey fluffball that he was, rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he grumbled, and… changed.
His body swelled and expanded, muscles tensing like he was a small panther, not an average sized house cat. His grey, fluffy tail became sleek and whip-like. He glowed purple all over, his eyes gleaming with the same pale green…
Then he was Banksia again, a small grey cat preening his whiskers by the fire. “We learned to adapt,” he said primly.
“He’s like Nero,” Ruthven said to Oxford.
“Apparently,” said Oxford , looking twitchy.
“Have the two of you spoken at all, since he came back?”
“We’re not here to talk about me and Nero.”
Ruthven had so many questions crowding into his brain. Aesop. Ask about Aesop. They have the footage here. Oxford said this was the only way to find out what happened to my cat.
He stared at the tea trolley instead. All very vintage and cozy. A large teapot on top, spare cups — Ruthven and Professor Burbage were the only ones currently drinking tea — and on the next shelf down, an enormous pineapple upside-down cake. Was that a joke? A reference to the Jade Pineapple? Ruthven was looking for patterns, desperate for it to all make sense.
“So,” he said, clearing his throat. He managed to sip some tea without rattling the cup on the saucer. “They fell into your lap. Those cats from the future. Nero, Aesop, Banksia. With the High Artefacts?”
“Oh, yes,” said Burbage. “The Jade Pineapple, the Violet Sunflower and the Basalt Sphinx. Each packed with secret knowledge that would allow us to travel in time. I called in a few friends from my university days who I thought would be interested — and might have enough money to sponsor such an endeavour. A few of them had been planning to found a school, but had never quite got it off the ground, so to speak. The whole thing developed quickly, once the Pennyworths got involved — their father was an orbital estate investor, and they were able to contribute the first derelict space station, ready for renovation. The Montereys took on that project, with the assistance of Dumas and Kincaid. Diana Melusine-Oxford managed the setting up of our early experiments, that woman is a demon with a schedule. And once we learned that cats were so essential to the safe time travelling process, well…”
“You needed more cats,” Ruthven said in a low voice. “Intelligent, rational cats who could communicate.”
Banksia yawned. “At first we only used the Basalt Sphinx to change our own appearances,” he said. “So we could blend in. Took a while to realise we could do it the other way, to develop advanced abilities in ordinary cats. Soames Kincaid had bought a kitten for his eldest kid, and we, uh…”
“Experimented,” said Ruthven. “Probably without any kind of ethics paperwork.”
“Successfully!” Banksia insisted. “That was Abydos. He was our first new traveller.”
“Such glorious days,” said Professor Burbage, happy in his own bubble of nostalgia. “Wild experimentation, time travel without consequences, free academic playground, talking cats. No rules. We felt like kings.”
“Gods,” coughed Banksia. “We were gods of time.”
“Well,” said Ruthven. “I’m glad it didn’t go to your heads.”
Oxford coughed; hid a laugh.
“So what went wrong?” Ruthven went on. “You both disappeared thirteen years ago, before the college program was even properly underway. If it was so wonderful, why did you leave?”
Burbage and Banksia looked at each other uneasily.
“A difference of opinions,” said Burbage. “We’d spotted a few anomalies during time travel, which made Banksia and the others suspect their people were hunting them, to retrieve the High Artefacts. The Founders got scared — next thing you knew they were building shields, retiring from the field, and training up their children instead. Meanwhile, they’d purchased two more space stations for college campuses. It seemed obvious that it was time to go public. Tell the world we had time travel. Bring in transparency with the application process, instead of scouring the world for orphans with a Cramberleigh fixation.”
“The Founders felt otherwise,” said Banksia. “Once public interest was invited, they would lose some measure of control. There were many meetings. Phrases like ‘proprietary technology’ were tossed around. ‘Stockholder security.’ Like they owned the Artefacts.” He sniffed in disapproval, and his eyes glowed briefly purple.
“They allowed us to leave with our memories intact,” said Burbage. They were not nearly as quick to use the Violet Sunflower, back then. I believe that came later.”
“It did,” Oxford said morosely.
“The Sunflower’s ability to tamper with people’s minds and memories was more powerful than we realised,” Burbage went on. “Thirteen years ago, the Founders only were only using it to enforce their Global Official Secrets Act — to prevent anyone who signed the damned contract from discussing their secrets freely.”
“Their Global Official Secrets Act?” Ruthven burst out, feeling outraged. “I thought it was a world government thing.”
Oxford gave him a twisted smile. “The world government doesn’t know about us,” he admitted. The space stations are listed as private corporate real estate. No one knows about time travel who doesn’t live and work at one of the colleges… or in this house.”
“Ah yes,” said Burbage. “We were allowed to be exiled from the program, as long as Banksia never leaves this property in his natural form.” He glanced around his library. “It’s not exactly a hardship, to live in exile. At least I got out before being a ‘professor’ of Chronos College meant marking essays and such. Though I do miss the adventure.”
“You can always watch the old footage,” said Banksia with a yawn. “They keep full backups of the Media Archives here, including all the secret files they don’t want their current crop of travellers to hear about,” he added to Ruthven. “Poor old Oxford here got the job of shipping new files to us, along with all the latest pompous memos from the Founders. Occasionally, he smuggles in some contraband like those amusing Zadie Kincaid pamphlets.”
Ruthven met Oxford’s eyes. “That’s how you know what happened to Aesop. You brought the footage here. You’ve seen it — the Ancient Rome mission that went wrong.”
